Lung cancer therapy using a chitosan-based nano drug discovery system of silver nanoparticles and chemotherapeutics

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related mortality among various types of cancer. In this way, unfortunately, some conventional modalities in cancer treatment such as surgery, immunotherapy, chemotherapy, etc., have high levels of deficiencies and even they can lead to death. To solve this challenge, this paper aims to develop a novel technology such as drug delivery systems (DDSs) based on nanoparticles (NPs).

To do so, chitosan (CS)-polycaprolactone (PCL) NPs were fabricated for efficient silver (Ag) NPs and sodium butyrate (NB) delivery to A549 lung cancer cells. Then, the CS-PCL-Ag-NB sample was characterized using FT-IR, DLS, TEM, and TGA devices. The quality of the syntheses verified, the size determined at about 100 nm to 20 nm in diameter, high thermal stability determined, and 30% Ag and 8% NB contents were measured for CS-PCL-Ag-NB.

According to the obtained results, the controlled (eight folds slower compared with pure NB) and pH-sensitive (3 folds faster in pH 5.0) NB releases were observed for nanocarrier. Moreover, the cell viability assay demonstrated more than 75% cytotoxicity for CS-PCL-Ag-NB after 24 h treatment with 20 nM concentration. Furthermore, qRT-PCR technique exhibited a 9.6, 5.9, and 7.8 folds increase in the expression levels of Caspase9, Bax, and P53 apoptotic genes after treatment with CS-PCL-Ag-NB.

High biocompatibility obtained for CS and CS-PCL samples. CS-PCL-Ag-NB indicated higher cancer cell inhibition potency compared with pure NB while fabricated nanocarrier had very low toxicity on MSC normal cells. Finally, the obtained results confirmed the ability of CS-PCL-Ag-NB in suppressing cancer cells and inducing apoptosis.